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The Western Canon Mailing List
Moderator: Paul John Barnette Jr.
Activation Date: March 8, 1997
Current Date:  April 23, 1997
Current Membership: 38
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Ken Martindale wrote:
>        I have the 1990 edition of Great Books of the Western World. 
>In the Biographical Note on Veblen says ...
>       Of the 102 Great Ideas, Veblen's book discusses  61 0f then,
>according to the Author-to-Idea Index in the 1990 edition of the GB.

I know that this is a bit off of Veblen, and I apologize for that. The
set really must have changed. I've an '84 set (27th printing) given to
me in '87 (and actively read since then) which seems to have none of
this. Has the set changed? Is Veblen now printed in the set? Are there
still 54 volumes, even?

Is my Great Books educated dated??

Incidentally, a good intro to Veblen is in _The_Worldly_Philosophers_
by Robert Heilbroner (subtitled "The lives, times and ideas of the
great economic thinkers"). Chapter VIII, "the Savage Society of
Thorstein Veblen." is a must read.

Also, hard to find but worthy of comparison is a British writer from
that time period (who is, incidentally ignored by Heilbroner) R.H.
Tawney's and his small book,  _The_Acquisitive_Society_.

I will post a few thoughts on Veblen tomorrow, and make an intro of
myself, but let me know how the Great Books set has changed, if you
don't mind.

Thanks,
Dennis

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Dennis Roberts
droberts@quicklink.net

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Response:

No need to apologize for being off topic Mr. Roberts. Your
question is very appropriate. Yes 'The Great Books of the Western
World' set has been updated. The version you have is the original 
edition that has been reprinted a number of times since its first 
printing back in the early fifties. The new edition was printed in 
1990 and Mortimer J. Adler managed the development of this  
edition. There are now more than 54 volumes, the exact number I do 
not remember. There are many new additions, especially in the post 
1900 period. Also, again if I remember correctly, some selections 
that were in the original edition were dropped in the new edition. I 
believe that Sterne and a few other met this fate. Perhaps someone 
else on the list can provide more info in this area.

If anyone is interested in seeing what the new edition looks like, I 
recommend visiting the following WWW site.

Great Books Index
http://www.mirror.org/books/gb.home.html

This site was created and is maintained by Ken Roberts. There you 
will find a complete list of all the works and authors that are 
contained in the new edition. Athough I believe that Ken have been 
generous and has retained all the authors that were in the original 
edition. 

I recommend that everyone on the mailing list visit this site and 
not only for the reason stated above. Ken has done an excellent job 
and I believe that everyone would find a visit to his site enjoyable 
and informative.

By the way, Tawney's 'The Acquisitive Society' is included in the new 
edition. Unfortunately there is no online version available as yet.

In conclusion, I would like to add that I totally agree with your 
comments on Heilbroner's book. I think that it is an excellent 
secondary source when reading Veblen.

Paul John Barnette Jr.


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